


Run Out of Places to Hide

by notoverit



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romance, it's gay and no one dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoverit/pseuds/notoverit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House is a romantic. Wilson ruins it. And marriage proposals turn into pranks. Or pranks turn into marriage proposals? It's definitely one of the two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Out of Places to Hide

 “Marriage is meaningless and stupid,” House declared apropos of nothing. He had made great progress in constructing a small castle out of the sugar cubes at their table but he’d left his sandwich untouched, which was unusual. Especially since he had been the one to insist that they go to the small restaurant near their hotel just for the reuben, passing three diners on the way. Wilson looked around the room, wondering what devious plot House could be trying to pull. But the place looked completely normal. An old jukebox in the corner, some old movie posters hanging on an expansive wall, a hodgepodge of New Orleans locals and tourists grabbing a late lunch. Yet, the infinite possibilities of mayhem House could get up to at a conference in New Orleans frightened him.

“Is this about a case you’re working long distance or an impromptu lecture about my terrible track record?” he asked, taking a bite of his turkey sandwich. It didn’t taste as good as House’s rueben looked. He reached across the table with, what he thought, was impressive speed. House swatted his hand away without even glancing up from his sugar cube architectural design.

“Neither,” he said, “my team has poopy mouth guy under control and you already know what I think of your track record. Can’t a guy just share a completely true observation about the state of our society with his friend?"

“Sure ‘a guy’ can but you specifically can’t without an ulterior motive or some sort of larger point,” Wilson reasoned, finally succeeding in snagging half of the reuben before House could stop him. “And… _friend_?" Wilson asked with a sly smile. He had always enjoyed teasing House. He had taken particular joy in doing this since they had started sleeping with each other two months earlier. He now had front-row seats to House’s many many feelings almost every single night and calling him out on his pretend blasé attitude during the day was that much more satisfying when he could just sit back and replay all the moaning and begging and endearments that had been uttered the night before.

 

House had now completed the basic structure of the castle and was balancing sugar cubes on their edges to decorate the walls. It was admittedly impressive. He paused in his task just long enough to glare at him.  

“You are _such_ a girl. What do you want me to call you. My  _boyfriend_? Aren’t we a little old for that? Or..oh let me guess we could be those people who call each other... _partner. Brokeback got us good don’t it?_ ” he suggested in a thick southern accent. 

“First of all Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger were sheep herders in Wyoming not cowboys in Texas as your accent would suggest—"

“Wilson, you’re spouting off Brokeback Mountain trivia, you couldn’t get any gayer if you called up Tim Gunn and—"

“Second of all, last night you seemed to prefer ‘God’,” Wilson said, stretching back in his seat and smirking suggestively. He stretched one leg out under the table until it brushed lightly against House’s leg. His smile turned into a grin when House’s pupils dilated at the brief contact.

House glared at him again, ruining an entire wall of the castle in his haste to do so. 

“I believe ‘Jesus’ also made an appearance. Though that one I just chalk up to your impeccable sense of irony about me being Jewish."

“I swear—"

“Oh and I also seem to recall being addressed as the love of your life in one of the particularly heated moments but--"

He dropped the teasing demeanor as he looked up from his plate and glimpsed the genuine look of panic on House’s face. He’d taken it too far. Confessions of love and need uttered under the safety of night and sex weren’t meant to be brought up over lunch. 

“Hey,” Wilson said softly, brushing his friend’s fingers with his own. He pretended to be reaching for the salt. He didn’t want to embarrass House with PDA. Plus, they were in Louisiana. Sure it was a very “anything goes” area of New Orleans but the last thing he needed was House getting into a fight with a couple southern homophobes. But he needed to reassure House, to let him know that his good-natured teasing wasn't meant to make fun of those moments of vulnerability.

“You got nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t start sleeping with you cause I thought you’d be good at composing poetry in bed. I always knew you’d suck at that,” he teased, tracing one finger along House’s wrist as he retreated to his own side of the table.  

House tried to glare at him for a moment longer but the tension drained from his shoulders and his lips twitched into a reluctant smile. Not a sarcastic one. A real one. The one that stripped him of all his Housian gravitas. The kind that made his face look silly and good-humored. The kind reserved for Wilson. 

“Do not! I just have small windows of time where I can talk. It really limits my options in terms of verse. Bet I could be very poetic in bed if you left my mouth unoccupied for more than—"

“House!"

“Anyway,” House shrugged, gathering his fallen sugar cubes and setting to work on repairing the wall he had sacrificed in his haste to chastise Wilson, “what I was saying is that marriage is useless. Why would two people who love each other and want to spend their lives together need a piece of paper to remind them." 

“Tax breaks, I’m assuming,” he deadpanned, popping a fry in his mouth. “Why aren’t you eating? You dragged me here because of a reuben you had god knows how many years ago."

“It would be logical if people _did_ marry for the tax breaks but they don’t. They marry for love,” House countered, “and the reuben isn’t the same. They changed it and it sucks."

“Some people enjoy celebrating good things—for example, being in love— with their friends and loved ones. For reference, those are human beings you enjoy spending time with and who spend time with you without being gravelly ill or paid to be in the room with you. I understand how the concept is confusing but, see, most people have more than one single person they socialize—" 

“Yes, yes, we get it you’re a saint,” House muttered.

“And,” Wilson said, pointing a finger at House in accusation, “you didn’t even try the reuben so how do you know it’s different."

“I told you I was craving it specifically because of the dark rye bread and the red sauerkraut and, as your pretty little eyes can see, this is clearly light rye and this is not red sauerkraut,” House countered as though explaining something to a particularly slow two-year-old. “And the marriage celebration isn't what I’m talking about! You could throw a party without getting _married._ But people believe in the dumbest parts of marriage. They believe in the vows and the rings and the gushing and the reading from Corinthians and being _husbands_ and _wives_ and promising ‘forever’ when they know going in that there’s a one in three chance it’ll end in divorce. Or three in three in your case--”

“I’m truly impressed you ranted about marriage for that long before working in a jab at me. Remarkable restraint,” he observed. “And you’re always hungry. You wouldn’t pass up a reuben cause it’s the wrong bread. The only times you don’t eat are when you’re scared or when you’re too focused on a puzzle. So which is it?"

“It’s all a lie,” House asserted definitively, finishing off a truly impressive sugar watch tower. “And I hate lies. No one can promise to love another person for the _rest—"_  

“Fine! You win. As always. Marriage is a sham. We’re all idiots and your worldview is the only correct one. House, oh mighty king of logic, diagnostics and human nature,” Wilson conceded in a deadpan, raising and lowering his hands in an exaggerated bow. 

“Well, obviously. I know you know I’m right,” House grinned, “but despite knowing all this:  _you_ love marriage."

“I don’t _love_ marriage. I loved the people I—"

“You can’t get enough of marriage. You’re angling for the Olympics. You’ve punching holes in your loyalty card, waiting to get one free—"

“I knew this was going to turn into a lecture about—"

“It’s a wonder you haven’t tried to lock this down yet. I’d think after two whole months, you’d want to be buying china,” House said with a wiggle of his eyebrows and a flirtatious wink. 

Wilson blinked repeatedly. Huffed out a laugh. “Is that what this is about?"

“What do you mean?" House exclaimed, the picture of innocence. He had moved on to carving spikes into the sugar cubes with his knife and lining them up atop the outer walls of the structure.

Wilson chuckled again. “You’re worried I’m trying to marry you. Scared I’m gonna pop out the corner and slip a ring on your finger before you have a chance to resist? Ambush you with an impromptu wedding in your living room?"

“I wasn't  _worried_ ,” House said with a roll of his eyes, “but now that you put it that way—"

“House,” he interrupted, “I don’t want to marry you. At all. You have nothing to fear."

Anyone else would have missed the millisecond where House froze, his eyes widening, his hands tensing around the knife. The next second he was leaning back in his seat with a completely genuine look of relief on his face. 

“You better not,” he said with a wag of his finger. “Cause do you really you’re devious enough to stage an ambush wedding without me sabotaging it? As if."

Wilson, who hadn’t missed that millisecond, was barely listening. He was at the edges of a very important discovery. For a moment, House had been disappointed to hear Wilson didn’t want to marry him--but then why had he been ranting…oh my god...

“Wait, House,” he stammered, “did you—"

“Hang on,” House muttered absent-mindedly, looking at a point over Wilson’s shoulder, “I have to use the little boy’s room."

“House. Wait." 

“My pee waits for no man. Be right back.” 

He hobbled off with a speed that was truly impressive for someone missing a significant chunks of thigh muscle. Wilson sighed, ran a hand over his face and looked behind him at the point House had been staring at, searching for any clues. There was nothing there. Just a short man bent over the jukebox, flipping through the selections.

Slowly, Wilson started fitting the pieces together…House had been trying—in his own roundabout way-- to gauge his reaction to marriage, hadn’t wanted to be reassured that it was off the table…on the contrary he’d wanted to know if it--

_Even though I’m in love_

_Sometimes I get so afraid_

_I’ll say something so wrong_

_Just to have something to say--_

As Billy Joel’s “Leave a Tender Moment Alone” started to blare on the jukebox, a few things happened at once: a familiar voice with an Australian accent yelled “No! No! That was the signal to abort! We went over this a dozen times how could you possibly—,” the short man beside the jukebox punched at the its buttons in frustration, saw Wilson looking at him, let out a frightened yelp and ran for the exit and a woman, who looked suspiciously like Thirteen, launched herself at the jukebox, unplugging it from the wall. The music stopped. The other patrons of the restaurant regarded the scene with mild curiosity. And Wilson realized with sudden, overwhelming clarity that House had been about to propose to him.

For a moment Wilson and Thirteen simply stared at each other. Him, sitting there, with raised eyebrows that he hoped communicated “The others I expect to go along with his maddening schemes. But you?" And her, standing there holding the jukebox cord, caught red-handed. Finally, she shrugged (“He’s _your_ crazy boyfriend! Don’t try to pin this on me.”), dropped the cord and headed for the exit.

Now that Wilson knew, it was all suddenly transparent. This was the bar where they had “met.” It had been remodeled and turned into a restaurant. A vintage mirror had once been hanging on the wall now adorned with old movie posters. The mirror that Wilson had broken. The jukebox had been the same. And House had summoned his minions to play the song that had driven Wilson to throw a bottle at the mirror.

It all made sense now. The fact that he’d suddenly been asked to give a lecture at this conference because Dr. Chen had cancelled. The fact that House had been so well-behaved throughout, his insistence that they had to track down his favorite reuben. 

House had been trying to propose to him in the most cloyingly sweet, romantic way possible and Wilson had rejected him before he even got to ask the question.

He looked around the restaurant. No sign of House.

“He’s not coming back from the ‘bathroom’ is he?” he asked himself aloud. Yup, House would have definitely escaped after hearing the song. He knew Wilson would put it together.

He ran his hand over his face again, noticing the untouched half of the Reuben still sitting on House’s plate. If this really was going to be a cliche proposal with a twist…could the ring be inside…but surely House wouldn’t just leave...

He took the sandwich and started taking it apart. Wedged between the sauerkraut and the corned beef, he found a small shard of mirror, about the size of his pinky, encased in a plastic frame with rounded edges. A piece of the mirror that had gotten them together.

Feeling dazed from his numerous discoveries, he gestured at their waitress for the check. She was a young woman with a tattoo of a rabbit on her left forearm and she looked at the sugar cube castle House had left behind with great fascination. 

“Damn,” she exclaimed, examining the watchtower with a whistle as Wilson fished around his wallet, “tell your friend he's super impressive. This is awesome."

Wilson blinked at her for a moment, not returning her smile.

“He’s not my friend,” he said, tossing a couple of bills on the table, “he’s my fiancé."

 

* * *

 

Wilson made an appearance at the Oncology Reception, partially because he had promised Dr. Bidermann he would go and partially because he was afraid that if he went back to their hotel room he’d find House and his belongings long gone. 

So it was with great effort that he kept his voice light and devoid of the crushing relief he was feeling as he slipped next to the House-shaped lump in their king-sized bed that evening.

“Missed you at the panel this afternoon."

“Hmmm."

“And the reception."

“Hrrrrmph." 

“Tried calling you."

 He tried sliding closer to House. He inched forward slowly, not wanting to scare him off. 

“Oh? Must have had my phone on silent."

“Yeah, well, I tried calling you 43 times before it started going straight to voicemail."

He extended one hand across the bed, reaching for the other man in the dark, groping for his outline, but House was already getting out of bed and hobbling towards the terrace. He made it as far as the sliding doors before his leg betrayed him and he had to lean his forehead against the cool glass, rubbing at his leg with a pained groan. Wilson could see him clearly now in the cold moonlight and it was obvious from the death-grip on his thigh that this was a bad one. 

"Want a massage?" Wilson suggested in a tone that he hoped conveyed the massage would have a happy ending.

"Nope."

Wilson slipped out of bed and walked up behind House, cautiously slipping his arms around him. House didn't lean into him as he usually did but he didn't pull away either. It was the best Wilson could have hoped for under the circumstances. He brushed his lips against House’s earlobe, leaving a trail of light kisses down his neck until he was impeded by the black cotton t-shirt.

"I would have said yes,” Wilson whispered against the collar of the t-shirt.  

House went stiff in his arms. "Then it's a good thing I didn't ask."

"Oh my mistake. I was under the impression that 'yes' is the answer people are looking for when they ask you to marry them," Wilson said in a tone of mock surprise, "but what would I know, right? I've only done this, oh, I dunno, three times or so."

 House mumbled an annoyed reply that Wilson only caught a few words of.

"What?"

 "I said," House snapped, breaking free of the embrace entirely and whipping around so they were standing face-to-face, “that I'd rather you had the balls to say no when you’d only be saying ‘yes’ because it’s…what you do. You go along with things. You’re nice to people."

Wilson planted his hands on his hips. “You think I’d marry you…just to be _nice_?"

House studied him for a moment, rubbing furiously at his thigh.

“You wouldn’t say yes just to be nice. You’d do it because you think you’re in charge of protecting me and you wouldn’t want to crush my heart and you figure ‘well I like him and it can’t be worse than marriage number three so—'"

“House that’s insane. I love you."

“But you wouldn’t be doing it because _you_ want to, which you made very clear—"

House brushed past him, trying to make his way back to the bed.  

“I had no idea you wanted to—“ Wilson tried to explain.

Except after standing so long without his cane, House's leg gave out on the very first step. He didn’t even resist as Wilson caught him under one arm and helped him settle on the plush duvet. Wilson sat at the edge of the bed, House laid out beside him with his feet dangling off the edge. And even though he was being thoroughly difficult, Wilson could only think about how much he loved the rumpled, grumbling lunatic lying beside him. 

House threw one arm over his eyes, letting out a snort. “Great front row seats to what you’d be signing up for isn’t it? A lifetime of helping a crippled old—"

“Shut up, you—"

“But it’d look so good for your kind, caring oncologist superhero persona, being gay married to a gay cripple. All the hot chicks would be like ‘awww you poor baby must be soooooo hard—'"

“Shut up, shut up—"

“Might actually help you score with Maegan from accounting—"

“House, I swear—"

“And, at least, you’d only have to put up with it until I finally croak from liver failure, which considering—"

“SHUT UP,” he yelled so loudly that House not only listened but also nearly fell off the bed in surprise.

He planted his face in his hands, trying to regulate his breathing. He could feel House sitting up beside him. When he looked over, House was half-sitting, propped up on his elbows, regarding him with an expression that was part curiosity and part guilt. 

“How could you say that to me when you know. You know! That’s my…my worst….the worst-- Every day. Do you hear me?—every _day_ I’m scared—that you--“ he sputtered with a few frantic gestures. Then a deep breath. A forced calm. He pointed a finger at House.  

“If your goal is to hurt me? Fine. Mission accomplished. Keep going. But if your goal is for me to suddenly go ‘Oh you know what? He’s such a jerk. I’ve suddenly realized this after fifteen years of knowing him and I don’t actually want to be with him,” Wilson said in a theatrical iteration of his own voice, “you’ve failed spectacularly. I know _exactly_ what I’m signing up for and I’m not going anywhere. And I have to say I’m a little underwhelmed by your ‘I’m hurting you now to save you in the long-term’ routine. Not your best work. Perhaps we should go stand at the edge of a forest and you can tell me you don’t want me anymore and to go back where I came from."

House was looking at him with wide eyes, his lips twitching a little even as he was trying to frown. “Can’t even pull a  _Harry and the Hendersons_  on my boyfriend. I’ve lost my gifts. I may as well die now,” he announced and proceeded to flop back down on the bed rather dramatically.

Wilson settled next to him, wrapping one arm around his middle. “There, there _darling_. You’re not completely useless. They say you're okay at the whole doctoring thing. I’m sure you’ll earn your keep in this marriage." 

“You’re insane,” House said with great affection. 

“Yeah but not cool enough to be certified like you."

 “The only person crazier than the loony bin guy is the guy who wants to marry loony bin guy."

It was meant to be a continuation of their banter, Wilson could tell, but it came out sounding so dejected that he pulled House closer to him on impulse until their bodies were pressed against each other.

 “House,” he whispered fiercely, all trace of joking gone, “I thought you were serious about how much you hated the idea of marriage and if that were true I’d…happily spend the rest of my life with you without getting married. I just. Didn’t want to scare you off. Thought you’d run in the opposite direction if you even got a wif that I might…want to. And then you planned a proposal that was so—"

“It was so stupid."

“Romantic! The song--"

“Was to annoy you. Wanted to remind you that I’d annoy you for the rest of your life."

“Was _our first_ inside joke _._ It was sweet. The mirror was—"

“Just found it in an old coat pocket. Figured it would remind you that you’re a dangerous, unhinged man not a nice unassuming--"

“The fact that you kept it,” Wilson said, then furrowed his brows. “Wait. Old coat pocket? I never even realized…you kept a piece of that mirror. I figured you tracked down some antique collector but you...took it, in the bar. Before you even knew me."

House didn’t reply.

“Gregory House,” he exclaimed, gloating, “did you fall in gay love with me the minute you saw me?"

“You wish. You were pretty but not that pretty."

But Wilson could already imagine, House watching his outburst and the ensuing bar fight from a quiet corner, bending down to pick up a shard of mirror with bright look of interest in his eyes.  

“Were you hitting on me that night?” he asked, raking his memories. House had done nothing to suggest 

House was silent for so long Wilson thought he wouldn’t answer.

“I…no. I wanted to. I saw you walking around with that envelope, I was intrigued. But then I watched you and the envelope wasn’t the most interesting mystery anymore. Here you were, way too young to be at one of those things and it was like you were the oldest person there. People wanted you to like them. You were pretending to be nice to all these idiots--,” House paused, laughing at the memory, “You were being blatantly sarcastic to some of them and they didn’t even realize. I wanted to know you so badly. And yeah I did want to…I wondered if you'd bat for my team,” he explained, “but I saw the divorce papers and I decided I didn't want to be your rebound guy. I followed you to the bar that night. Figured I had to do something outrageous to get you to notice me but you beat me to it." 

“I love you,” was the only thing he could say in response to that

“Yes you’ve mentioned,” House snorted, “you loved all your wives too, remember?"

“If you didn’t believe this is different you wouldn’t have even thought about proposing,” Wilson countered, slipping one hand under the hem of his t-shirt, fingers tracing around his belly-button, “This is it for me, House. This has been it for me since the beginning. Before I got blowjobs out of it." 

He felt House’s laughter under his fingertips more than he heard it. 

“I could live without the blowjobs. I can’t live without you,” House whispered, “I’d rather be your friend than your ex." 

“Thought you’d rather be my husband."

“Yeah, that too."

“So let’s go with that. All relationships end until the one that doesn’t, you know."

“Well, those ones end when one party dies."

“Oh you. Always a ray of sunshine. We’ll Thelma and Louise it in the end, how's that?" 

House doesn't reply for a very long time.

“Alright but I get to drive."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Throw back to when David Shore ruined my life.


End file.
